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Thursday, January 3, 2013

3 January - Blogs I'm Following

Hafiz, 14th century Sufi poet, comments on the Common Core:
"Dropping Keys
The small person
Builds cages for everyone
She
Sees.
Instead, the sage,
Who needs to duck her head,
When the moon is low,
Can be found dropping keys, all night long
For the beautiful,
Rowdy,
Prisoners."
(For this and other great quotes, see
http://www.susanohanian.org/quotes.php)

New Jersey's popular Republican governor, Chris Christie, has turned on the
Republican-controlled House of Representatives and House majority leaderJohn Boehner is reeling.
*"Americans are tired of the palace intrigue and political partisanship of
this Congress, which places one-upmanship ahead of the lives of the
citizens who sent these people to Washington DC in the first place,"
Christie said.*
*He added: "America deserves better than yet another example of a
government that has forgotten who they are there to serve and why."
Referring specifically to the failure to act on th... more »

Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Gerard
Depardieu, the French movie star who is quitting his homeland to avoid a
tax hike on the rich, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
The "Cyrano de Bergerac" actor bought a house across the border in Belgium
last year to avoid a new tax rate for millionaires in France planned by
Socialist President Francois Hollande but said he could also seek tax exile
elsewhere.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/03/us-russia-depardieu-idUSBRE90206G20130103

Rebels battled on Thursday to seize an air base in northern Syria, part of
a campaign to fight back against the air power that has given President
Bashar al-Assad's forces free rein to bomb rebel-held towns.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in the 21-month-old uprising and
civil war, the United Nations said this week, sharply raising the death
toll estimate in a conflict that shows no sign of ending.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/03/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8AJ1FK20130103

*THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 2013*
*Was Bazelon’s aim true:* On this morning’s front page, the New York Times
reports on the homicide rate in Chicago.
The report features a photograph of a young black child in Chicago. We’ll
guess that he’s eleven or twelve. He’s at a peace vigil, holding this sign:
“DON’T SHOOT. I want to grow up.”
Younger kids stand beside him.
For our money, Monica Davey’s report was a bit light on the information. In
Chicago, homicides were up 16 percent from 2011, she says, even as overall
crime in the city dropped. But how did the number of homicides in Chicago
com... more »

Judge backs Obama administration on secrecy of targeted killings of
terrorism suspects By Karen DeYoung, Published: January 2 The Washington
Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/2013/01/02/83799c18-5515-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
[Excerpted] The Obama administration acted lawfully in refusing to
disclose information about its targeted killings of terrorism suspects,
including the 2011 drone strikes that killed three U.S. citizens in
Yemen,
a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
But the judge also described a “veritable Catch-22” of secur... more »

[image: Australians escape the 2013 heat wave on the beach. Ryan Osland /
SMH]
By Peter Hannam, Carbon economy editor
4 January 2013
(Sydney Morning Herald) – LONG-STANDING temperature records may be broken
in coming days as a massive heatwave sizzles much of the country.
A huge swath of central and south-eastern Australia is poised to swelter on
Friday with temperatures expected to peak at 41 degrees in Melbourne, 44 in
Adelaide and even 39 in Hobart.
"We probably will get close to some of the really significant
Australia-wide records," said Aaron Coutts-Smith, the NSW climate s... more »

*As reported by my printed Boston Globe these last few months:*
"Taliban insurgents die in airstrike
KABUL — A *coalition airstrike* *killed more than 20* Taliban insurgents
who gathered to oversee a public execution in northeastern Afghanistan on
Saturday, Afghan officials said. Some Afghan officials in Kunar Province,
where the strike occurred, put the death toll much higher, at *40 to 50*.
NATO said only that ‘‘at least two dozen’’ insurgents were killed. The
bombing took place in the Chapa Dara district of Kunar Province, an area
near Pakistan (New York Times)."
"A *coalition a... more »

Making my rounds of the mainstream news online I notice that harperscum
trolls have all been trained to parrot the lie that Chief Spence was given
$90 million to provide housing for her community of 2,000 people and
yadda-yadda-yadda, These disgusting cretins insinuate that Chief Spence's
hunger-strike (so-far onto its 21st day) is merely a ploy to mask her
siphoning of Canadian taxpayers' dollars into an offshore bank account.*
The thing is, these racist pieces of shit have forgotten that Chief
Spence's community, Attawapiskat, was under co-management with the federal
government. S... more »

[image: Hunter Mike Wilson looks in vain for pheasant in Iowa. The
pheasant, once king of Iowa’s nearly half-a-billion-dollar hunting
industry, is vanishing from the state. Surveys show that the population in
2012 was the second lowest on record, 81 percent below the average over the
past four decades. Daniel Acker for The New York Times]
By JOHN ELIGON
31 December 2012
ELKHART, Iowa (The New York Times) – Mike Wilson glared dejectedly through
the mist on his silver-frame glasses at the soggy field of tall, dense
brush, tilting the barrel of his 12-gauge shotgun toward the gray c... more »

[image: In almost every patch of boreal forest in Interior Alaska that
Glenn Juday has studied since the 1980s, at least one quarter of the aspen,
white spruce, and birch trees are dead. In the Interior, Juday sees
significant numbers of dead trees, which he attributes to higher air
temperatures here since the mid-1970s. Along with less moisture available
to trees, some of the warmer temperature events have triggered infestations
of insects. Anchorage Daily News]
By Ned Rozell
31 December 2012
Anchorage, Alaska (Anchorage Daily News) – In almost every patch of boreal
forest in I... more »

The news came as Buenos Aries told the Prime Minister should return the
islands to Argentina 180 years to the day since they were “forcibly
stripped” from the south American country.
Downing Street said that the Prime Minister would “do everything to protect
the interests of the Falkland Islanders”.
The source added: “The people of the Falklands have a clear desire to
remain British and the Argentine government should respect their right to
self-determination.”
The commitment from Downing Street comes despite repeated warnings from
ex-admirals that Britain might not have the mili... more »

[image: A white rhino after it was dehorned at the ranch of John Hume, a
South African entrepreneur who now owns more than 800 rhinos, with names
like Curly, Titan, Hillary, and Pinocchio, and has amassed a 2,000-pound
mountain of horn worth millions of dollars. Joao Silva / The New York Times]
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
31 December 2012
KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa (The New York Times) — They definitely
did not look like ordinary big-game hunters, the stream of slender young
Thai women who showed up on the veld wearing tight bluejeans and sneakers.
But the rhinoceros carcasses k... more »

*THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 2013*
*Part 3—High praise for those who failed us:* Who knows?
Dylan Matthews may turn out to be the best “policy journalist who focuses
on taxes, budgets, and other elements of US economic and fiscal policy” in
journalistic history.
(For part 2 of this award-winning series, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 1/2/13.)
That’s the way Matthews describes himself at his personal web site. At the
Washington Post’s Wonkblog site, the gent is profiled as follows: “Dylan
Matthews covers taxes, poverty, campaign finance, higher education, and all
things data. He has also written ... more »

[image: image]By FELICITY BARRINGER
31 December 2012
(The New York Times) – The record-setting disappearance of Arctic sea ice
this fall was an indication to many climate scientists and ice experts that
the pace of climate change was outstripping predictions.
Now a new study published this week in the journal *Geophysical Research
Letters* provides a look at a dynamic that may further accelerate the
process: the rate at which the ocean underneath the ice absorbs sunlight.
The bottom line of the study, which was done by four scientists, three at
the Alfred Wegener Institute for P... more »

I'm late to this post, so I'm just going to do it scattershot-style...
First, I'll give you some links. Of course you're going to want to start
with what Sarah Binder says. See also Simon Jackman on voting in the House,
And Jared Bernstein is worth reading on the policy and the politics.
Meanwhile, I wound up not having a post-length reaction, but I have a bunch
of small points, so here they are before they get too stale:
* "Permanent" in budget-speak is meaningful and important, but it doesn't
mean what "permanent" means in ordinary language. If Democrats have the
votes to do it in... more »

*Argentina: Strange Light Over Carlos Paz*
*By Andrés Ferreyra
Date: Wednesday, 02 January 2013*
*The sighting took place on Friday, 7 December 2012*
Carlos Paz Vivo! (website) gained access to two videos taken onn 7 December
2012 from a residence in Barrio Becú. SEE THE IMAGES
HERE:http://www.carlospazvivo.com/carlos-paz/hechos/13120-ovni-extrana-luz-sobrevolo-carlos-paz
After 8:00 p.m. on that day, a woman and some children in a house of that
neighborhood of western Carlos Paz saw a strange light in the sky at dusk.
They turned on their little camera and recorded tw... more »

Last October, Amazon introduced a new feature: a list of bestselling
authors, aggregating across all books an author has written. Here is the
list of the top 100 authors.
For an economist, perusing the list is a humbling experience. As far as I
can tell, not a single member of our profession made the list. I wonder
whether Galbriath might have made it in his day, as he had written a large
number of books accessible to general audiences. But these days, not a
single one of us has wide enough readership to make it onto the list. The
next time you are tempted to lament the sad state o... more »

Happy Birthday to Sarah Alexander, 41. "Coupling" is almost certainly in my
top 5 sitcoms of 00s, the last season notwithstanding. Although I'm very
slow getting to things and so I'm open to dumping it for something else.
To the good stuff:
1. Andrew Sullivan, on his own. I've come to believe that, oddly enough,
and whatever you think of his (and his team's) evolution into a blogazine
or whatever it is (I think it's terrific, but that's another story), he's
an underrated blogger. And he's always been incredibly nice to me and Plain
Blog. Consider subscribing!
2. Excellent series o... more »

Yesterday I worked and worked at this posting. It got so long, I broke it
up.
Still I couldn't get it to come together even as I worked at it more last
evening
It's a new day, so here we go yet again.
Now that the holiday’s are over. Whew! (Wipes brow)
Let's get back to the ‘news’. Or what passes for it?
What is presented as news, doesn't strike me as informative or realistic,
it is more like a hard sell.
The steady drum beat growing louder and faster punctuated by shrieks and
calls to keep your attention, in order to advance the war agenda. Often
reinforced with gruesome images an... more »

This is a familiar story. Yesterday, Stoke's *Sentinel* reported that the
City Council is having problems getting its tenants to "downsize" ahead of
housing benefit cuts. For readers unfamiliar with the new rules due to come
in, if you are, for example, a single person renting a two bed terrace, or
a family living in a three bedroom house with a boy and a girl under the
age of 10, you will be deemed to be "under-occupying" the property and get
your housing benefit cut - hence it's being dubbed the "bedroom tax". As
the *Sentinel* notes, there are significant difficulties because onl... more »

It is now 2013, and although the world did not end as the Mayans had
"predicted", there are some very serious issues that this world faces this
year. As I have said many times already, 2013 could be the year that we
either defeat the criminals out for our enslavement, or we lose this battle
and allow them to have the finishing pieces put into place for their push
for world domination.
I want to present a very interesting article, that I came across from the
website: "The American Dream" at www.endoftheamericandream.com, simply
entitled: "Why?". This article presents 25 important... more »

One of my major resolutions this year is to see my pre-baby weight on the
scale. I am a stress eater. I have always know that about myself and moving
across the country and then living apart from my husband for two months
before moving again was NOT good for my goals. I had worked so hard to lose
25 pounds last year and then I saw some (luckily not all) of that come
right back on.
After all that stress and the holidays, I knew I had to take action, I
needed a program, something to stick to, but I have never found something
that fit me. I have always wanted a program that focused on ... more »

The recent mass protest movements that have been taking place in several
Iraqi governates can be classified as the beginning of a spring revolution
in that country. These protests took place when in al-Anbar, Nineveh,
Salahuddin, Mosul Fallujah and Al-Ramadi.
The Sunni protestors are reacting to Prime Minister Nouri-al-Malik’s
(Shiite) suppression against them and the jailing of some of their Sunni
political leadership including the Sunni Iraqi women’s ill treatment in
prison.
The arrest of members of the Sunni community in Iraq on suspicion of
terrorist activities is in reality... more »

Jeff Merkley
Obama is wrong often enough, but rarely does that coincide with the
Republicans being right about the same issue. He may suck-- he does-- but
they're even worse. He's always been a solid "D" or, at best, an occasional
"C." The Republicans never rise beyond an "F." Never. Even when they
stumble onto the right decision, it's always for the wrong reason. And
that's what we're talking about today. Obama signed an Executive Order
giving congressmembers a raise. A raise! Their salaries should be cut in
half! The first sign I had of it was a tweet from progressive Oregon
Senat... more »

Michael Valpy -- whose new address seems to be the *Toronto Star* -- writes
that Canadians are becoming markedly intolerant of one another -- and
Stephen Harper is reaping the political benefits:
What we have are profound, systemic demographic divisions of age and
education that aren’t going to go away for years, if ever — divisions which
Harper, like Shakespeare’s Brutus, has recognized as a tide in the affairs
of men that, taken at the flood, can lead to victory.
He’s deftly caught the baby-boom on the boomerang — the young and
rebellious of the 1960s and ’70s who grew into ... more »

It just get more and more blatant.
Israel's two chief rabbis, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger and Sephardi
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar, have come out in support of the
controversial Efrat organization, which opposes abortion in Israel.
. . .
Organizers of the right-wing Jerusalem Conference, sponsored by Israel
National News and the B'Sheva newspaper, recently announced their plan to
award their "Jerusalem Prize" to Efrat.
. . .
The Efrat organization achieved notoriety in October after an 18-year-old,
Raz Atias, threatened to kill his pregnant girlfriend and commit suicide.
Ati... more »

I love it when right-wingers make Freudian slips.
Cascade Policy Institute
Those who subscribe to the principles of individual liberty, limited
government and free markets call themselves by many names, including
conservative, liberal and libertarian. Cascade combines an appreciation for
private enterprise and the market process with a respect for civil
liberties.
Yep right-wingers!!
Extremist right-wing policy in line with ALEC – in fact they are an ALEC-er.
Now that you know who is the focus of this post – here’s the reason.
A recent rebuttal to the American Legislative Exchange C... more »

The CIA’s projected Japan death rate for 2012 is shown in this chart.
Instead, after the Fukushima disaster, the actual mortality rate is the
same as 2011.
Contravening the Japanese government’s claim that not a single person has
yet to die from Fukushima radiation, national mortality figures just
released to the press by the Ministry of Health and Welfare presents
undeniable data confirming a record high death rate since the 3.11 disaster.
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2013/01/03/is-fukushima-a-factor-in-japans-record-deaths-in-2011-12/

Russia has reportedly sent a warship carrying a marines unit to Syria’s
Mediterranean port of Tartus, where Moscow has a naval base.
Citing military sources, Russian media reported on Sunday that the
Novocherkassk landing ship left the port of Novorossiisk in the Black Sea
and is due to arrive at Tartus in the early days of January.
Two other warships, the Azov and Nikolai Filchenkov, have also reportedly
been dispatched to Syria from Russian naval bases since Friday.
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2013/01/02/russia-sends-more-warships-to-syria-reports/

Residents and those passing by near Dogwood Hills subdivision on Boyd Creek
Highway Sunday afternoon were met with an unusual scene. Dozens of dead
birds littered the highway and surrounding fields after falling from the
sky. Sgt. Robert Stoffle of the Sevier County Sheriff’s Department said a
call about the birds came in around 1:15 p.m.
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/12/up-to-300-birds-mysteriously-fall-from-the-sky-in-seymour-tennessee-2526024.html

This beautiful wolf, the alpha male of the pack at the Haliburton Wolf
Centre, was shot and killed on New Year's Day. The previous night, some
idiot cut both the inner and outer fences on the pack's enclosure. Four
wolves escaped. Haida is now dead, and the other wolves, who were born in
captivity and are unlikely to be able to survive the winter on their own,
were missing.
An update from a local paper says that the other escapees have been spotted
outside the fence, trying to get home. Wolf centre people are trying to
lure them in with food.
Poor Haida. What a terrible waste, a... more »

*Jonathan Vilma upset with anonymous Saint's ripjob ~Greg Rosenthal*
*One month out, officials go into high gear preparing Superdome for Super
Bowl *
*Witness gives account of traffic collision on Decatur St.**~"The only
information we're getting is from the friends that were there and from
Facebook. Facebook has given us more information than anybody else. The
police have yet to contact us. They have never talked to us. As far as I
know they haven't talked to Brett Matherne either," says Piglia. *
*NOFD could see cuts even as city breaks ground on new engine houses *
*New Orleans ... more »

Thanks to a user calling him- or herself Obat with varying made up
surnames, who has been spamming the comments fields of this blog with
lamely disguised commercial messages during the last few weeks, I will for
some time switch the comments-function to obligatory moderation. That is,
if you post a comment, it won't appear until I give the go ahead - which I
obviously will not if you display some sort of off-topic, commercial or
otherwise inappropriate message, ditto link or somesuch. This goes for
links embedded in usernames as well.
I regret to have to do this, preferring very muc... more »

A person is vaccinated against the flu Global Political Awakening
Six people in Indiana have been fired from a hospital over the flu shot.
The hospital’s parent company is mandating workers get the vaccine, saying
the health and safety of its patients is the top priority.
“I am not a troublemaker,” fired Oncology nurse Joyce Gingrich explains.
“I feel like I’m a good nurse. And unfortunately, the hospital is losing
some good nurses.”
Two other employees quit because they didn’t want the shot.
The hospital did allow some exemptions for people with allergies or
religious belie... more »

Some sex, gender, and women highlights and lowlights for the week: In the
post “2012: The year in sexism” Laura Bates lists the sexist ‘lowlights’ of
each month (from Rush Limbaugh’s slut comment to Todd Akin’s ‘legit’ rape
gaff). The Huffington Post has some high and low gender moments of its own-
the high point
Continue reading

President Obama, on vacation in Hawaii, signed the deal using an autopen, a
device that copies his signature. He's the only president in history to use
the gizmo to sign a bill into law.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256428/Obama-uses-autopen-sign-fiscal-cliff-deal-law--playing-round-golf-Hawaii.html

The 'fiscal cliff' compromise, even with all its chaos, controversy and
unresolved questions, was enough to ignite the stock market on Wednesday,
the first trading day of the new year.
The Dow Jones industrial average careened more than 300 points higher, its
biggest gain since December 2011. It's now just 5 percent below its record
high close reached in October 2007. The Russell 2000, an index that tracks
smaller companies, shot up to 873.42, the highest close in its history.
The reverie multiplied across the globe, with stock indexes throughout
Europe and Asia leaping higher. A le... more »

On January 1, Congress approved a tax and spending bill to avert the
so-called "fiscal cliff" combination of tax hikes and spending cuts that
would have created deflationary pressure on the United States (though Yglesias
questioned the conventional wisdom of whether it would necessarily cause a
recession). Let's take a look at the deal in some detail, then proceed to
the gruesome details of what will happen around the Ides of March.
From Think Progress, here are some of the more critical parts of the deal.
1) The Bush tax cuts expire on only about 0.7% of households, those earning
m... more »

Source: https://www.facebook.com/MomsAcrossAmerica
*Moms Across America is a coalition of American Moms who want GMOs Labeled
NOW! Because WE SAID SO! We are forming the Moms Across America March to
Label GMOs at July 4th 2013 parades on Main Streets USA everywhere !*
*Beskrivning*
*This page is to connect and update Moms Across America who want to know
more about how to go GMO Free, and what you can do and to get involved in
sharing with Moms in your area and march together on July 4th to get them
labeled. As Robyn O'Brien said " It's the most patriotic thing you can do".*
*Our m... more »

Next Prop 37? New Mexico Law Calls for Mandatory Labeling of GMOs
by Anthony Gucciardi
Natural Society, 3 January 2013
*Is this the next Prop 37, complete with a forthcoming wave of successful
activism and education from concerned consumers? Unfortunately we know that
Prop 37 failed due to not only **irrefutable deception** and lies from the
Monsanto-funded ‘No on 37′ campaign, but also seriously questionable vote
counting. What did succeed, however, is mounting awareness over the dangers
of GMOs and the subsequent need for labeling.*
This awareness has triggered New Mexico lawmak... more »

Genetic Engineering and the GMO Industry: Corporate Hijacking of Food and
Agricultureby Colin Todhunter
Global Research Canada, 30 December 2012
*“I recognized my two selves: a crusading idealist and a cold, granitic
believer in the law of the jungle” – Edgar Monsanto Queeny, Monsanto
chairman, 1943-63, “The Spirit of Enterprise”, 1934.*
*When rich companies with politically-connected lobbyists and seats on
government-appointed bodies bend policies for their own ends, we are in
serious trouble. It is then that our democratic institutions become
hijacked and our choices, freedoms... more »

Two Sydney men are set to be extradited to the United States for firearm
and drug-related offences.
Police arrested the men, aged 31 and 44, this morning as part an
investigation into an alleged illegal gun supply route between Nashville,
Tennessee, and Sydney.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/15757030/men-arrested-over-us-australia-gun-smuggling/

The number of FBI background checks for U.S. gun purchases set a record in
December, as the Connecticut school massacre prompted renewed talk of
limits on firearms, according to new FBI data.
The FBI said it recorded 2.8 million background checks during the month,
surpassing the record set in November of 2 million checks. The number was
up 49 percent over December 2011, when the FBI performed a then-record 1.9
million checks.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2013/01/02/december-gun-sales-set-all-time-record-and-they-continue-to-soar/

NEW YORK – The phones at Red's Trading Post wouldn't stop ringing. Would-be
customers from as far away as New York wanted to know if the Twin Falls,
Idaho, gun shop had firearms in stock. Others clamored to find out if their
orders had been shipped.
Overwhelmed, gun store manager Ryan Horsley had to do what no employee
would ever think of doing just days before Christmas: He disconnected the
phone lines for three whole days. "We had to shut everything off," says
Horsley, whose family has owned Red's Trading Post, the state's oldest gun
shop, since 1936. "We were swamped in the store... more »

First published on Echo Park Patch on January 2, 2013.
------------------------------
*"Thinking is not the intellectual reproduction of what already exists
anyway." — Theodor Adorno*
[image: LAUSD Candidate Robert D. Skeels supported the struggle to save
LAUSD K-6 Arts]One of the more intriguing aspects of being a candidate for
a high profile office like Member of Board of Education, Los Angeles
Unified School District, is the number of questionnaires various
organizations ask you to complete. Some of these are for endorsement
considerations, others are just to publicize your st... more »

So far we have been forced to read tea leaves with the new North Korean
Leader as he consolidates control and retires any opposition. This
represents the first pronouncement that can be accepted as an invitation to
rationalize the situation and should be followed up.
Unless he is blind and stupid, not a zero risk, the way forward is
obvious. Resolving the confrontation and standing down is a really good
place to begin. After all that, the next order of business is to establish
protocols that groom North Korea for outright absorption into a Greater
Korea.
It is a decad... more »

Well maybe and maybe not. The problem is that we are inept at optimizing
the child's experience so that he is rewarded for improving his brain
functionality. The bad news is that I think it can be done and really be
beneficial also. The brain has a number of functionalities that need to be
worked in order for them to be optimized. The best time to start is always
as soon as possible.
It is not the tablet but the promise of the tablet that now clearly has
the horsepower to manage robotic toys and soon will. We will likely have to
develop new toy concepts to properly exploit... more »

This tells us that full blown graphene fabrication and manufacturing
integration is well on the way to achieving it's natural promise. Yet it is
barely into public awareness even several years after it arrived on the
scene.
I also think that manufacturing is barely beginning to master this product
and expect to see astonishing things here not possible on anything else.
We can see decades of advances coming into this easily equal to what was
experienced with silicon.
*Flexible graphene transistor sets new records*
*Dec 10, 2012*
*
http://physicsworld.com/cws/arti... more »

What makes this problem interesting is that the population was both
dispersed but mobile and this allowed any single unit to avoid outright
absorption and assimilation. Intermarriage took place often enough but it
was a single individual every few years and they would always move on
severing any local ties. Thus the population remained internally more
homogenous than would be expected.
They also arrived in Europe at much the same time as the Jews entered
Europe from the Mediterranean. Both interacted throughout Europe and it
will be instructive to compare the resultant g... more »

New research from the Alaska Climate Research Center shows that since the
beginning of the 21st century, temperatures in the snow covered land of
Alaska are actually getting colder - bucking the overall global warming
trend.
In the Last Frontier, where temperatures can get as cold as 50 degrees
below zero, local residents have experienced the increasing chill and
scientists now confirm that the Northwest state is indeed seeing a
temperature drop.
A new report from the research center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
reveals that the 49th state of the union has cooled by 2.4... more »

After America postponed its jump off the fiscal cliff in the small hours of
Tuesday night, world stock markets soared. Anyone listening to the BBC
yesterday with its headlines praising Barack Obama would think something
quite profound had changed in the world’s greatest — if battered — economy.
However, it has not.
Intractable problems — chief among them chronic over-spending and weak
consumer demand — have still not been solved.
The tackling of those issues has merely been postponed until the end of
next month, when America’s legally enforceable ‘debt ceiling’ will probably
be rea... more »

Councils are trying to cover up the number of taxpayer-subsidised homes
they are handing to foreigners, it was claimed yesterday.
Local authorities have stopped giving figures for how many houses and flats
they have given to foreign citizens amid rising worries over the impacts of
immigration, a report said.
Councils in London, where one in five publicly-financed homes are already
known to be occupied by foreigners, are among those no longer supplying the
figures.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256366/Councils-refuse-reveal-number-homes-foreigners-Authorities-stop-giving-f... more »

A Parliamentary answer reveals 3,980 foreign criminals who should have been
sent back to their country of origin are 'living in the community'.
Convicted rapist William Danga (above) violently molested two young girls
while he fought deportation on human rights grounds. The figures do not
even include than handful of terror suspects like Abu Qatada (inset) whom
the Government is seeking to extradite.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256285/4-000-foreign-murderers-rapists-throw--yes-blame-human-rights-again.html

Italy's outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti pledged to cut labor taxes to
fuel growth on Wednesday as he shed his neutral technocrat stance and fired
the opening salvo of his campaign for a second term.
The former European Commissioner was appointed in November 2011 to lead an
unelected right-left government of experts to save Italy from financial
crisis after Silvio Berlusconi quit amid a sex scandal and a crisis that
threatened the euro.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/02/us-italy-vote-idUSBRE90109520130102

A French satirical magazine Wednesday published a blasphemous book against
the holy prophet of Islam (PBUH).
The offices of this magazine were earlier firebombed after it published
blasphemous cartoons. The editor of Charlie Hebdo weekly, however, insisted
that the new book, titled
“The Life of Mohammed”, is a properly researched and educational work
prepared by a Franco-Tunisian sociologist. It was edited by Muslims, he
said.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-19972-Blasphemous-book-published-in-France

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said on Wednesday some of its members had been
wrongfully arrested in United Arab Emirates (UAE) on allegations of helping
to train local Islamists in subversion tactics.
"I know 11 people were detained. I know that some of them are from the
Brotherhood," said Mahmoud Ghozlan, a Brotherhood spokesman in Cairo. "The
claim that they are a cell seeking to destabilize the country is devoid of
truth."
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=298188

The Tasmanian Fire Service is trying to control three large bushfires in
hot and windy conditions.
Fires are burning in the areas of Richmond and Ouse in the south, and at
Four Mile Creek on the east coast.
The most recent fire is burning in bushland off Middle Tea Tree Road, near
the historic town of Richmond.
A police roadblock is in place and more than 50 people have been evacuated
from a local caravan park.
It is understood the Richmond Zoo has been closed and livestock from nearby
farms is being moved.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/15755486/tasmanian-fire-crews-battle-m... more »

Canadians struggle to cope with the offensive noise from the Sun News
Network. Typical TV viewers may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below:
Commentator Ezra Levant. It’s 2013, and it’s time for Sun News Network
commentator Ezra Levant to either apologize for or explain his comments on
Sept. 5, 2012, about the Roma. Now, Mr. ... more »

[image: Spanish Team, Costa del Sol]
*Spain: Number 28*
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has attempted to measure "which
country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and
prosperous life" in 2013 and the years ahead.
The top countries all have small populations, and a relatively small gap
between rich and poor: Switzerland, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark...
The top ten are mainly countries in Europe.
The USA has slipped down to 16th position.
*International: The lottery of life | The Economist* / *Singapore 6th,
Malaysia 36th best nation to be born in 2... more »

President Nixon and Chuck Colson are talking about a plan to mess with the
Washington Post; I'm going to just excerpt the relevant bits, which have a
wonderful den of thieves flavor about them.
--
President Nixon: Let's face it. The only thing in my view, the main thing
that was unfortunate from the standpoint of the presidency on the Watergate
was the Segretti business, and Haldeman slipped a bit in here, ... he
shouldn't have had, say Chapin, working on the damn thing. My point is
that's *too Goddamn close*. You know what I mean? That kind of operation
should be on the outside.
... more »

Firefighters are on high alert with parts of Australia tipped to have seven
days above 40C.
Roxby Downs and Oodnadatta in South Australia's outback are set to sizzle
with six days in a row above 45C and the tiny town of Tarcoola is forecast
to reach 47C on Monday.
Temperatures will remain above 40C for the next six or seven days in many
other inland parts of Australia including the towns of Mildura and Ouyen in
Victoria.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/vic/latest/a/-/latest/15753561/week-long-heatwave-to-hit-australia/

A U.S. drone strike killed a Taliban commander, his deputy and eight others
in northern Pakistan, intelligence sources and tribal leaders said Thursday.
Maulvi Nazir Wazir, also known as Mullah Nazir, an important commander from
the Wazir tribe, was killed on Wednesday night when missiles struck a house
in Angoor Adda, near the capital of Wana, South Waziristan, near the Afghan
border, seven intelligence sources and two residents from his tribe said.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/03/uk-pakistan-drone-idUKBRE90203I20130103

MNN:
CANADA’S DEATH CAMPS
By Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com
CANADA’S DEATH CAMPS
MNN. Jan. 2, 2013. The “Indian” reserves are concentration camps for
Indigenous people, designed to breed hopelessness, suicides and
eventually death. The world is seeing hunger striker Chief Theresa
Spence as a victim of this policy.
The main function of reserves is genocide to purge

Dedicated stargazers are gearing up for the peak of the 2013 Quadrantid
meteor shower, which will be best viewed from the Earth’s northern
hemisphere in the wee hours of Jan. 3, according to NASA — but this year a
bright moon may hamper the celestial show.
The U.S. space agency notes that the gibbous moon, which will be more than
half illuminated, will likely wash out fainter meteors. Also, the first
shower of the year will only last a few hours, meaning timing will be key
for eager observers.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/01/02/sci-quadrantid-meteor-shower.html

Japan’s population last year declined by 212,000, the biggest drop on
record, according to an estimateby the nation’s health ministry.
That’s the largest reduction since the ministry started recording the data
in 1947 and a sixth straight year of declines. The number of births fell by
18,000 to a record low of 1.03 million last year, the ministry said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-01/japan-s-population-falls-by-record-in-2012-as-births-decrease.html

*Contact us immediately by email if any of the following has happened:*
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This article in Environmental Health Perspectives describes new sensitive
tests being developed to study the effects of endocrine-disruptors.
Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that impact the complex chemicals of our
body's endocrine system. Endocrine disruptors have been found to have big
negative effects in low doses on developing mammals.
The Environmental Health Perspectives article discusses a new protocol and
explains that is is very much in demand to identify the most harmful
endocrine disruptors. The article states that US chemical regulations do
not currently address endo... more »

The mother of a teen killed along with two friends in an Alabama plane
crash says her son had his own key to the plane and had flown it many times.
Sherrie Smith says her 17-year-old son Jordan Smith was the one flying the
plane that crashed in the Alabama woods. She says two other male teen
friends also died in the crash.
Authorities have said they believed the plane was taken on a joy ride
without the owner's permission.
http://news.sky.com/story/1032631/alabama-joyride-plane-crash-kills-teens

A gunman has killed three people and injured two others after opening fire
in a village in southern Switzerland.
The man had reportedly been drinking heavily before the attack on Wednesday
night and was armed with an assault rifle.
http://news.sky.com/story/1032795/gunman-shoots-three-dead-in-switzerland

Police have found convicted killer Phillip Westwater who escaped from a
psychiatric hospital in Newcastle on Wednesday morning.
It is understood a member of the public told Northumbria Police after
recognising the 44-year-old from a circulated photo.
Westwater - dubbed the "Black Dog Strangler" - has been taken back to the
secure St Nicholas Hospital in Gosforth.
http://news.sky.com/story/1032744/black-dog-strangler-escaped-killer-found

Detectives have released a picture of a 15-year-old they want to question
over the suspected murder of a teenager in a row over a mobile phone.
The CCTV image, filmed on a bus on Sunday just after 10.30pm, is believed
to be the last sighting of Dawda Jallow from Peckham in South East London,
who has been missing since the stabbing.
It shows him travelling on the number 35 bus between Camberwell Green and
Newington Causeway.
http://news.sky.com/story/1032709/dawda-jallow-cctv-boy-wanted-over-stabbing

An Irish climber has been killed after being struck by lightning while
scaling Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro.
Ian McKeever, 42, died in the freak tragedy as he led a group up the
mountain.
It is understood a number of other climbers with him also needed medical
attention.
http://news.sky.com/story/1032780/climber-killed-by-lightning-on-kilimanjaro

Amnesty International
Joint Statement Supporting Chief Spence and "Idle No More"
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
January 2, 2013
Indigenous and human rights organizations stand in solidarity with Chief
Theresa Spence in her appeal for full respect for Aboriginal and Treaty rights
by the government of Canada. There is an urgent need for Canada to demonstrate
genuine

Sure we know we don’t stick to New Year resolutions (apparently only 8% of
resolutions are fulfilled) but they’re fun to make, right? In addition to
the top 5 New Year’s resolutions that most people don’t keep (loosing
weight, quitting smoking, going on a diet, stopping a bad habit, and
getting more exercise) some of
Continue reading

Iranian officials have instructed residents of Isfahan to leave the city,
renewing concerns that a nearby nuclear site could be leaking radioactive
material.
An edict issued Wednesday by Iranian authorities orders Isfahan’s
one-and-a-half million people to leave the city “because pollution has now
reached emergency levels,” the BBC reported.
However, outside observers suspect that the evacuation order may
corroborate previous reports indicating that a uranium enrichment facility
near Isfahan had been leaking radioactive material.
Tehran went to great lengths in December to deny t... more »

Terrance
Nelson discusses upcoming rail and pipeline blockade and US relations
By Terrance Nelson
Roseau River Ojibway
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Chief Fox,
On July 20th 2010, US Ambassador David Jacobson made a presentation to
the leadership of the First Nations at the Assembly of First Nations
summit in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He did so despite the Government of

*“Machines?”*
by Chet Raymo
“When his friend James Madison's betrothed broke off their engagement,
Thomas Jefferson wrote in sympathy. "Of all machines," he said, "ours is
the most complex and inexplicable." Would beautiful Kitty Floyd, Madison's
intended, have appreciated being called a "machine"? Would you? But, of
course, Jefferson is right, we are machines. Hugely complex and still
largely inexplicable biological machines, at least by the evidence of the
biological papers I read weekly in the journals Science and Nature, which
profusely invoke the mechanical metaphor. "Cellu... more »

*El Buffet may not be your idea of Party Central, but people make do with
what they have available to them. And you'll note that it's open 24 HOURS.*
*by Ken*
Just the other night -- New Year's Eve, actually -- I tried hard to allow
for the possibility that 2013 might bring us grounds for hope. So far,
though, the new year is looking creepily familiar.
*DNAinfo.com*
*Drunken Brawl Over Bathroom Line Mars New Year's Party, Witnesses Say*January
1, 2013 11:45am | By Nigel Chiwaya, Victoria Bekiempis, and Carla Zanoni
INWOOD -- New Year's revelers attacked each other with broken Taba... more »

The first decade of the 21st century was a heady time for foreign-policy
wonks. Why? Because their world was awash with Great Debates about Grand
StrategyTM. Now things seem much less exciting. Perhaps that’s because,
despite the best efforts of the usual suspects, the partisan debate no
longer maps well onto big ideas about grand
Continue reading

*"Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the
Islamic Republic of Iran" *by* *Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
will be available next week, January 8, 2013.
Below are excerpts from reviews of the book by Lt. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former
Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist Seymour Hersh, professor Anatol Lieven, and professor Andrew J.
Bacevich. [Source: Amazon.com]
"One needn’t agree with every word in Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett’s new
book, *Going to Tehran*, to grasp its basic truth: U.S. Ira... more »

*The Ubuntu operating system has been customized to run on smartphones.The
Linux-based software will permit users to run desktop apps on their
handsets, allowing them to double for PCs when docked to monitors.* The
code will firstly be released as a file which can be installed on Samsung's
Galaxy Nexus phone, replacing Android. Some analysts question whether
consumers really want the power of a fully fledged processor on their phone.
Ubuntu is the most accepted operating system to be based on the Linux
kernel the code that lets software and hardware work together. The firm
makes... more »

*Attendance at Taipei Zoo, 1999-2012. The pandas arrived in Dec of 2008.
Figures for 2012 do not yet include Dec, which should add at least
225,000.*
Heh. It was four years ago this month that the Annexation
Lardbombsexploded at the Taipei Zoo. They were delivered on Dec 23,
2008, and went
on display a month later, to a brief flurry of absolute madness.
Profoundly
political and not the least bit a demonstration of goodwill, they were
handled as a "domestic transfer" under CITES, one of the many quiet ways
that the Ma government has capitulated to Beijing, as my round-up post
above ... more »

Regular readers (if any are left) will remember that I wrote many posts on
the subject of the number of dead in Iraq. There was a concerted effort on
the part of the U.S. government and media to minimize that number, and to
denigrate or ignore scientific studies which yielded higher numbers, in
keeping with their own self-interest.
In Syria, of course, the shoe is on the other foot, and the U.S. government
and media have every interest in *maximizing* the number of dead, and
furthermore, in ignoring any breakdown of those numbers, because they want
very much to leave the impression... more »

I'm not really one to make New Years resolutions. I guess I'm too much of
a student of history to view things in small yearly durations, opting
instead to look at broader sweeps of time. But I do have a few broad
goals in mind that I've been working on lately so I thought I'd share them
here.
First off, I'm hoping to be able to work a little less this year (or at
least until summer hits) and make more time for myself). The nature of
work being what it is here, its pretty easy to burn yourself out if you're
not careful. I'm not sure how many 18-day shifts I worked since last... more »

(My emphasis throughout)
I wanted to show you a few snips – that will hopefully provide you with an
example of the on-going anti-climate right-wing extremist agenda that is
disseminated at ALEC meetings.
Based on this information – it is not hard to understand why ALEC
legislators come back from these meetings with stinking thinking that is
based on right-wing extremist propaganda.
First a little recap of the purpose of one of their meetings.
Spring Task Force Summit
The Summit is an intensive three-day meeting of ALEC’s task force members,
designed to keep members abreast of new ... more »

Brad Delong calls this “hoisted from the archives,” which is clearly a
better term for what I’m doing. But, as that’s taken and I’m not as smart
as the great economics professor, I guess I’ll just have to stick with this
alternative. Peer reviewing: a call to arms (updated) From: 22 April 2009 I
just
Continue reading

Two prominent Rightwing bobble heads, PostMedia's John Ivison and the
Ottawa Citizen's Terry Glavin have both written surly op-eds dismissing the
Idle No More movement as frivolous, simplistic and disingenuous.
Their columns reveal more about the state of rightwing minds than the Idle
No More movement itself. To them, the native protest is to be taken in
isolation, whittled down to something they can digest, spun and
misconstrued, and then dismissed as irrelevant, insincere carping.
What they refuse to see is Idle No More in the larger context. They don't
see it as merely one... more »

Coral reefs off the coast of China have largely died off, a study finds.
Photo courtesy: Hughes et al. Current Biology
Coral reefs are under siege worldwide, and now a team of Australian and
Chinese researchers has made an alarming discovery in the waters near
China: The teeming coral reefs once found off the shores of the Asian giant
have shrunk by an astonishing 80 percent over the last 30 years.
Biological surveys in the South China Sea and off mainland China revealed
that losses of living coral reefs, especially in the past 10 to 15 years,
present a "grim picture of decline, de... more »

*At the link, hear NJ Gov. Chris Christie tear into the other-than-"good"
people in Congress who last night turned their backs on the victims of
Superstorm Sandy.*
They have the still North in their hearts, the hill winds in their veins,
and the GRANITE of New Hampshire in their muscles and their brains,
and the GRANITE of New Hampshire in their muscles and their brains.
*-- the grand climax of a mercifully disused old college song*
*by Ken*
We actually used to that old college song in olden days, and some of us
relished the silliness of all but boasting of that granite in our brains... more »

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